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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
As a historian and man of learning, William of Malmesbury has over the last century drawn the most diverse reactions from those scholars whose work has brought them into contact with him. On the one hand, praise has been lavished on his wide reading, critical acumen and historical judgement; on the odier, his credulity, carelessness, wilful mishandling of evidence and meandering irrelevance have been stigmatised. One group of scholars sees him as head and shoulders above, and in advance of his time, a ‘modern’ writer; others see him as the creature of his epoch and immediate environment in a pejorative sense. Yet it would surely be true to say that no-one since or apart from William Stubbs has attained such a command of William's output as to be in a position to make an overall assessment of it. Even Stubbs did not claim to be attempting this and, in any case, he was unacquainted with several of William's works, and misattributed others.
1 Darlington, R., Anglo-Norman Historians, London 1947Google Scholar; Southern, R. W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing IV: The Sense of the Past’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 23 (1973), 255CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smalley, B., Historians in the Middle Ages, London 1974, 90, 92–3Google Scholar.
2 Carter, P. N., ‘William of Malmesbury: Miracles of the Virgin Mary’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University, 1959, 2 vols., i, ch. viGoogle Scholar; Stubbs, W. in his edition of William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, Rolls Series, London 1887–9 (henceforward cited as GR, by volume and page), ii. xv–cxiiGoogle Scholar, esp. cxli–cxlii; Patterson, R. B., ‘William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester’, American Historical Review, 70 (1965), 983–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Stubbs did not know of William's canonistic collection (Oxford, Oriel Coll., MS. 42), his collection of Cicero's works (Cambridge, University Library, MS. Dd. 13. 2), his copy of John the Scot (Cambridge, Trinity Coll., MS. O. 5. 20) or of Martianus Capella (Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll., MS. 221); he wrongly attributed to William the version of the Passio S. Indracti in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Digby 109, and the Miracula S. Andrei really by Gregory of Tours. For the canon of William's works, see Thomson, R. M., ‘The Reading of William of Malmesbury’, Revue Bénédictine, 85 (1975), 362–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 395–6, and idem., ‘The Reading of William of Malmesbury: Addenda et Corrigenda’, Rev. Bén., 86 (1976), 327–35Google Scholar.
4 Artt. cit.
5 As outlined by Leclercq, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (new English edition, London 1978)Google Scholar, chs. 6 and 7.
6 GR, ii. 338–40, 402–3, 513, 516; Hamilton, N. E. S. (ed.), William of Malmesbury, Gesta Ponlificum, Rolls Series, London 1870, 173Google Scholar (hereafter cited as GP, by page).
7 GR, i. 103.
8 Ibid., i. 1,3, 121. On the style of Aethelweard and other Anglo-Latin writers criticised by William, see Lapidge, M., ‘The hermeneutic style in tenth-century Anglo-Latin literature’, Anglo-Saxon England, 4, Cambridge 1975, 67–111Google Scholar.
9 GR, i. 11 ff.
10 Thomson, ‘Reading’, 380 and n. 6.
11 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Arch. Seld. B. 16, fols. 75–134v; Thomson, ‘Reading’, 387.
12 Ibid., 364.
13 Cambridge, St. John's College, MS. 97, fol. 104v.
14 Ibid., fol. 111v.
15 Thomson, R. M., ‘William of Malmesbury, John of Salisbury and the Noctes Atticarum’, Hommages à André Boutemy, ed. Cambier, G. (Coll. Latomiu, 145, Brussels 1976), 369Google Scholar n. 12, 382 n. 28.
16 GR, i. cxxix.
17 R. M. Thomson, ‘Reading’, 364–5, 373–4, 380, 382, 387; to these examples can be added the following: Cambridge, St. John's Coll., MS. 97 (Polyhistor), fol. 104: ‘Possem plura de libris Ciceronis cjuos habemus excerpere, nisi quod et quedam iudico inania, et quedam scio a Valerio et Plinio excerpta quamuis et aliqua eorum que illi excerpserunt ego hie scienter apposueri; sane laudem Lucii Luculli quam eum in libro Achademicis excussit, propter claritatem dictorum non preteribo…’; B. L., MS. Had. 3969 (Polyhistor), fol. 32, after a series of excerpts from Cicero, De Senectute: ‘Hie animaduertat lector me pretermisisse de Atheniensibus, qui hoc quod Temistocles dixerat utile quoniam honestum non erat dimiserunt, de falso testamento Minutii Basuli, de profuga Pyrri qui uenit ad Fabricium, de octo milibus Romanorum quos uiuos cepit Hannibal; hec enim omnia in Valerio Maximo leguntur. Dimisi etiam quod Marius criminacione Metelli acquisierit consulatum, quoniam in Salustio copiose legitur; preterii nichilominus quod Titus Manlius tribunum plebis pro criminacione prioris sui uoluerit necare, quoniam copiosius in Seneca de Beneficiis inuenitur; quedam tamen que alii dixerunt apposui, quoniam eos ilia ex Tullio excerpsisse qui eos tempore precessit sciui’.
18 Laistner, M. L. W., ‘Bede as a Classical and a Patristic Scholar’, in The Intellectual Heritage of the Early Middle Ages, ed. Starr, C., Cornell 1957, 103–4Google Scholar.
19 The evidence is set out in Thomson, ‘Reading’, 393–4.
20 GP, 431–2.
21 Ed. Könsgen, E., in Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 31 (1975), 204–14Google Scholar.
22 Ibid., 213–4.
23 Ed. Darlington, R., ‘Camden Third Series’, 11 (1928), viiiGoogle Scholar.
24 Thomson, ‘Reading’, 373–4.
25 B. L., MS. Harl. 3969 (Polyhist.), fol. 39*v. Cf. Cassiodorus, Institutes, i. 3, 3: ‘Hieremiam … etiam sanctus Hieronymus uiginti libris commentatus esse monstratur; ex quibus sex tantum nos potuimus inuenire …’. In fact Jerome never completed more than these books.
26 Historia Novella, ed. and transl. Potter, K., London 1955, 34Google Scholar, where the reference to Livy is not commented upon. It was M. R. James who recognised that this quote was at second hand: Two Ancient English Scholars, Glasgow 1931, 26Google Scholar.
27 Thomson, ‘Addenda’, 333.
28 GR, i. 65.
29 Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C., Oxford 1896, iGoogle Scholar. clxii.
30 Paulinus, Vita Ambrosii, ch. 45: P.I., xiv. col. 43.
31 Southern, art. at., 254–5.
32 GR, ii. 403; Scott, A. B., Hildeberti Carmina Minora, Leipzig 1969Google Scholar, no. 36.
33 Southern, art. cit., 254; Robinson, J. A., Somerset Historical Essays, London 1921Google Scholar, ch. 2.
34 Southern, loc. cit. The most recent research into the early Glastonbury charters is found in Finberg, H., The Early Charters of Wessex, Leicester 1964.Google Scholar
35 Southern, R. W., St. Anselm and his Biographer, Cambridge 1963, 274Google Scholar, 326 and n. 1.
36 Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing IV, 255. This, of course, does not invalidate his opinion that William's judgements were more usually based on his reading than on his first-hand encounters with people and events.
37 GR, i. 13.
38 Thomson, ‘Reading’, 379.
39 Baedae Opera, i. 8.
40 For Williams's connexions with Canterbury writers see Thomson, ‘Reading’, 369–70, 379–80, 388–90, 392–3; for his quotation of the ‘Canterbury Forgeries’ see GP, 46–62, GR, ii. 342–8, and Southern, R. W., ‘The Canterbury Forgeries’, English Historical Review, 73 (1958), 193–226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 GR, i. i, 2, 46, 53, 57, 60–7 etc.
42 GP, 330 and cf. 293, 296.
43 Thomson, ‘Reading’, 390 and n. 5.
44 GR, i. 1–3.
45 Ibid., 2.
46 Ibid., and GP, 22.
47 GR, i. l, 3, 31, 144; GP, 344; Stubbs, W. (ed.), Memorials of St. Dunstan, Rolls Series, London 1874, 250Google Scholar (William's Vita Dunstani, henceforward cited as VD).
48 Southern, R. W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing I: The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 20 (1970), 177–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 VD, 250–2. These, however, are not his only criticisms of Osbern.
50 GP, 331. Faricius's Life is in Acta Sanctorum, vi. 84 (25 May).
51 GR, i. 1–2; Baedae Opera, i. 6–7.
52 GR, i. 132–3.
53 Vila Wulfstani, 2, citing from the translation of Peile, J. H. F., William of Malmesbury's Life of St. Wulstan, Oxford 1934, 2Google Scholar; Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England c. 550–1307, London 1974, 87–9Google Scholar.
54 GR, i. 65.
55 Thomson, ‘Reading’, 384–7.
56 Ibid., 385–6.
57 Ibid., 385.
58 GR, i. cxxix.
59 Carter, i. 121; Canal, J. M., El Libra ‘De Laudibus et Miraculis Sanctae Mariae’ de Guillermo de Malmesbury, Rome 1968, 63Google Scholar (Prol.).
60 Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing IV’, 254.
61 I take it that William's charter is identical with Finberg, no. 357; cf. Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters, London 1968Google Scholar, no. 1249. Of 9 extant charters of Caedwalla (2 incomplete) 8 are generally regarded as either spurious or including spurious elements; the one exception is a text too incomplete for evaluation: Sawyer, nos. 230–5, 241(?), 1603, 1610.
62 B. L., MS. Harl. 3969, fol. 16v.
63 The twelfth-century MS. is Oxford, New College, MS. 129, fol. 158v; Kirkestede, Catalogus (Cambridge, University Library, MS. Add. 3470), 86.
64 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 365, fol. 340.
65 Ogilvy, J. D. A., Books known to the English, 597–1066, Cambridge Mass., 2nd ed., 1967, 187, 218Google Scholar. The letter is probably not by Julian but by Pelagius himself: Dekkers, E. and Gaar, A., Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 2nd ed., Bruges etc. 1961Google Scholar, no. 737.
66 Thomson,’Reading’, 385.
67 Cf. Ray, R. D., ‘Medieval Historiography through the Twelfth Century: Problems and Progress of Research’, Viator, 5 (1974), 33–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
68 I am referring here to a new text constructed by my colleague, Mr. J. Scott, from Cambridge, Trinity College, MS. R. 5. 33, on the basis of the preliminary work done by J. A. Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays, ch. 1, and by Newell, W., ‘William of Malmesbury on the Antiquity of Glastonbury’, Publications of the Modem Language Society of America, new ser., 11 (1903), 459–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
69 William's account, minus the interpolations, would run much as follows: ‘Tradunt bone credulitatis annales quod Lucius rex Britannorum ad Eleutherium xiii loco post beatum Petrum papam miserit, orans ut Britannie tenebras luce Christiane predicationis illustraret; mactus animi rex, magne prorsus laudis factum adorsus, ut fidem quam tune temporis pene omnes reges et populi persequerentur exhibitam, ipse ultro appeteret uix auditam. De qua re ut aliquid extrinsecus dicam, in eiusdem meriti laudem concurret Ethelbertus, multis annis post Lucium rex Cantie, qui predicatores ad se de Roma missos non turbido abegit responso, sed benigno excepit hospitio. Accessit benignitati solers uerborum festiuitas, quia etsi nollet uerbis eorum preproperum assensum apponere, tamen quia de longe uenerant, ut que optima credebant ei communicarent, absurdum uideri posset, si eis quidquam inferret molestie. Sunt ergo hi uiri amplissima recordatione digni, quorum alter christianitatem prudenter inuitauit, alter libenter excepit. Venerunt ergo Eleutherio mittente predicatores Britanniam. Horum fuit opera uetusta Sancte Marie in Glastonia ecclesie, sicut fidelis per succidua secula non tacuit antiquitas. Sunt et ille non exigue fidei littere apud Sanctum Edmundum et apud Sanctum Augustinum Anglorum apostolum reperte, quod hanc sanctissimam ecclesiam Glastonie non fecerunt aliorum hominum manus, sed ipsi discipuli Christi earn edificauerunt; nee abhorret a uero, quia si’ Philippus apostolus Gallis predicauit sicut Freculfus libro ii. cap. 4 dicit, potest credi quod etiam trans oceanum sermonis semina iecit’.
70 P.L., clxxi. col. 1730.
71 GR, i. 194–203, 253–4; ii. 294–5.
72 See Rosenthal, J., ‘Bede's Use of Miracles in “The Ecclesiastical History”’, Traditio, 31 (1975), 328–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A rediscovery of Bede seems to have been a crucial component of Anglo-Norman historiography; cf. Brooke, C. N. L., ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth as a Historian’, in Church and Government in the Middle Ages; Essays presented to C. R. Cheney, Cambridge 1976, 77–91Google Scholar.
73 GR, ii. 380–5.
74 Benton, J. F. (ed. and transl.), Self and Society in Medieval France; the Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent, New York 1970Google Scholar, passim, but espec. iii. chs. 18–20.
75 Carter, ii. 291–2 (his translation); Canal, op. cit., 57–8.
76 Carter, ii. 296; Canal, op. cit., 63.
77 Thomson, R. M., ‘William of Malmesbury and some other Western Writers on Islam’, Medievalia et Humanistica, new ser., 6 (1975), 179–87Google Scholar.
78 Morris, C., The Discovery of the Individual 1050–1200, London 1972, 51–7Google Scholar.
79 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS: Arch. Seld. B. 16; for its contents see Thomson, ‘Reading’, 378, 387–8.
80 Some of these commentaries are printed by Stubbs in GR, i. cxxiv–v, cxxvii–cxl, and by Thomson, ‘Reading’, 384, 387. The only other which is of any length is on fol. 140: ‘Quos successores Carolus Caluus habuerit in ilia pane Galliae quae nunc Francia dicitur, quamuis in gestis Francorum inueniatur, tamen hie occasione Caroli Magni non omittam. Eorum ergo hie sunt nomina …’.
81 See the quotation in the previous note.
82 The prologue to the Polyhistor is printed by James, M. R., Descriptive Catalogue of MSS. in the library of St. John's College Cambridge, Cambridge 1913, 127–8Google Scholar, and translated by him in Two Ancient English Scholars, 26–7. The note to the Cicero-collection is printed in full in Thomson, ‘Reading’, 373–4.
83 In the passage in the Cicero-collection cited in the previous note; in the Miracula B.V.M., Mir. 31 (Canal, 132), in the Polyhistor and in the Vita Wulfstani, 15.
84 Bolgar, R. R., The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries, Cambridge 1954, 51–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 204–5. Cf. Ogilvy, Books known to the English, 174, for the use of Jerome, Ad Eustochium, by Bede, Aldhelm and Alcuin.
85 Reynolds, L. D., The Medieval Tradition of Seneca's Letters, Oxford 1965, 115–22Google Scholar.
86 Thomson, ‘William of Malmesbury and some early Western Writers …’, 180.
87 B. L., MS. Had. 3969, fol. 16v.
88 Moos, P. von, Hildebert von Lavardin, Stuttgart 1965Google Scholar, passim (see Index under Stoa and Seneca).
89 Mir. 26 (Canal, 116; Carter's translation). The source seems to be Seneca, Ep., 11. 8–10.
90 Vita Wulfstani, 5.
91 Luscombe, D., ‘The Ethics of Abelard’, in Peter Abelard, Medievalia Lovanensia, Series 1/Studia 11, Leuven and The Hague, 1974, 66–73Google Scholar.
92 Oxford, Bodleian Library., MS. Arch. Seld. B. 16, fols. 11–72v, passim; cf. the instance of a twelfth-century Sallust annotated similarly in Smalley, 19–20 and Pl. 9.
93 Contained in B. L., MS. Harl. 3969.
94 For these see Thomson, ‘Reading’, 397–8.
95 Ibid., 372–6.
96 See above, 397; ‘rex facundiae Romanae’ in Thomson, ‘Reading’, 377.
97 See above, 389 n. 8.
98 GR, i. 2.
99 For a good (and rare) example of William's deployment of his knowledge of classical rhetoric in the service of biblical scholarship, see Oxford, Bodleian Library., MS. Bodl. 868 (Commentary on Lamentations), fol. 111: ‘Isti more strutionum negligunt oua sua. Dicuntur hec hyperbolice; hyperbole porro est dictio fidem excedens, usitatissima tam gentilibus quam nostris …’.
100 See the introduction printed by Stubbs, GR, i. cxxii–cxxiii.
101 See above, 393 n. 32.
102 Scott, Hildeberti Carmina Minora, no. 37.
103 See the arguments advanced in Thomson, ‘Reading’, 391–2.
104 Benzinger, J., Invectiva in Roman, Lübeck and Hamburg 1968, 75Google Scholar and n. 10. Cf. William, Mir. B.V.M., Mir. 31 (Canal, 129): ‘Domestico et naturali Romanis malo ut sint auarissimi, sicut in ueteribus historiis est legere, et his temporibus approbare’.
105 GR, ii. 390.
106 E.g. Thomson, ‘Reading’, 373–4, 378 and nn. 4 and 5.
107 Ibid., 381 and n. 2.
108 See above, 389; for the latter, see especially Schütt, M., ‘The Literary Form of William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, English Historical Review, 46 (1931), 255–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Townsend, G., ‘Suetonius and his Influence’ in Dorey, T. (ed.), Latin Biography, London 1967, 107Google Scholar.
109 Useful, that is, in a Christian context: Taylor, J. (ed.), The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor, Columbia 1961, 18Google Scholar, 137.
110 GR, i. 103.
111 Ibid., ii. 132–3, 166–74, 304–5.
112 Ibid., 395.
113 See above, 403–5.
114 Cf. what William says he is about in his dedication to earl Robert of Gloucester: GR, i. 355.
115 For the MSS. and editions of these collections, other than those already mentioned in this essay, see Thomson, ‘Reading’, passim, and idem, ‘Addenda et Corrigenda’, 329–33.
116 Oxford, Lincoln College, MS. lat. 100 (Military Strategy Collection), fol. 3: ‘His sua Willelmus decriuit tempora libris / Coniungens studiis haec quoque parua suis. / Quos animi causa poteris percurrere lector; / Nam cum summa grauant, inferiora iuuant’; London, Lambeth Palace Library., MS 224, fol. ii: ‘Disputat Anselmus presul Cantorberiensis. / Scribit Willelmus monachus Malmesburiensis. / Ambos gratifice complectere lector amice.’ These are reproduced in facsimile in Ker, N. R., ‘William of Malmesbury's Handwriting’, English Historical Review, 59 (1944)Google Scholar, Pis. 2 and 3.
117 The prologue, where this is stated, is printed by Fanner, D. H., ‘William of Malmesbury's Commentary on Lamentations’, Studia Monastica, 4 (1962), 309–10Google Scholar.
118 For the Oriel Collection, see Thomson, ‘Reading’, 385, and ‘Addenda et Corrigenda’, 332–3; on the corrections to his text of Tertullian see H. Hoppe, Tertulliani Apologeticum (C.S.E.L., 69), xxvi and nn. For Jordanes see T. Mommsen, Jordanis Romana et Getica (M.G.H., Auct. Ant., v. i), liv; on the Breviarium, idem., Theodosiani Libri XVI, Berlin, 2nd ed., 1954, i. cxxxiiGoogle Scholar; on Leo, Chavasse, A., S. Leonis Magni Tractatus Septem et Nonaginta (C.C.S.L., 188–188A [1973], vol. 188), xxxii.Google Scholar
119 GR, i. 260; Plummer, Baedae Opera, i. cxiv n.i.
120 Farmer, ‘William of Malmesbury's Commentary on Lamentations’, 209–10.
121 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 868, fol. 12 2v.
122 Namely, from two letters, the Chronicle and De Viris Illustribus.
123 The extracts in the Defloratio are omitted from Farmer's printed list of contents (art. cit., 310–11); they follow the prologue.
124 Oxford, Oriel College, MS. 42, fols. 90–90v.
125 In Oriel College, MS. 42, Lambeth Library, MS. 224, and the Defloratio.
126 See Ker, art. cit., with the additions recorded in Farmer, D. H., ‘William of Malmesbury's Life and Works’, in this JOURNAL, 13 (1962), 54.Google Scholar
127 ‘The Scriptorium of William of Malmesbury’, in Medieval Manuscripts, Scribes and Libraries; Essays presented to N. R. Ker, ed. Parkes, M. and Watson, A., London 1978, 117–42Google Scholar.
128 Könsgen, 211–14.
129 The division, not noted by Könsgen, occurs at p. 213 of his edition, with the paragraph beginning ‘Solebant sane …’.
130 However in GP, 332, William explicitly denies Aldhelm's alleged relationship with the West Saxon royal house, referring to the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This does not necessarily contradict our argument, for William could have altered his opinion in the course of his researches.
131 For the ‘Chronicles’, see Historic Novella, 1; for the lost poem on St. Aelfgifu, GP, 187.
132 See particularly the articles by R. B. Patterson, ‘William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester’, 893–7, and (less conclusively), ‘Stephen's Shaftesbury Charter: another Case against William of Malmesbury’, Speculum, 43 (1968), 487–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
133 GR, i. 357–8, 465–6.
134 At least this is so in the Troyes MS., which I assume derives from one or other of the copies sent to the king and empress. The most likely alternative explanation of its incompleteness, loss of leaves in its exemplar, accounts ill for the fact that it ends with a complete sentence.
135 Thomson, ‘Reading’, 393–4.
136 Ibid., 391–2.
137 MSS. of the Antiquities all seem to come from Glastonbury; it was, however, also known to Gerald of Wales. For MSS. see Hardy, T. D., A Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, Rolls Series, London 1862–71Google Scholar, ii. no. 278. For MSS. containing the Vita Aldhelmi see Hamilton's introduction to GP, xi–xxvi.
138 five MSS. will be used by Dr. R. Pfaff in his forthcoming edition, all but one English. Only two have known provenances: Llanthony and Cambridge University.
139 Cambridge, St. John's College, MS. 97 (Polyhist.) is a St. Augustine's book; the main MS. of the Commentary (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 868) is mid-twelfth century, from Worcester.
140 Thomson,’Reading’, 393.
141 The fortuna of this work is studied in detail by Carter, i. 17–36, 58–78; cf. Canal, 29–31.
142 Bede, Hist. Eccl., v. xxiv.
143 Geoffrey Chaucer, Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, line 308.
